


Yesterday Was

by kylee



Category: Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead - Stoppard
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-30
Updated: 2011-10-30
Packaged: 2017-10-25 02:18:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/270650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kylee/pseuds/kylee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are tiny. (Written in 2005.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Yesterday Was

It isn't his first memory, if he can remember it at all, but it was a very long time ago -- before England, before the boat, before the bang at the shutters, the shout in the dawn. Before even Elsinore or Hamlet.

A field in Denmark, of no particular or visible character, except for a patch of strawberries -- or perhaps it was blackberries -- or at any rate, a quiet congregation of leaves spread out like sun-seeking hands, catching and cradling the light, and a pair of eyes wide and wary with all the solemn dignity of a child. It seemed odd that any sort of berry patch should have eyes, nevertheless wide and wary ones, and to a boy accustomed to finding berries and leaves the occasional chrysalis, it seemed very curious.

So with all the reckless curiosity of a child, he leaned over and peered in on them, nose to nose -- or rather eye to eye.

They blinked.

The boy blinked back. "What a manner of thing art thou ...?"

The leaves shook with indignity, and a small voice tumbled out. " _What_?"

"Are you a butterfly?" the boy asked, tilting his little head and its mop of messy brown hair to a side. The sun shone at his back like a spotlight.

"Do I _look_ like a butterfly?"

"Well, I don't know," the boy admitted. "I can't see very much of you, can I? Though the bits I _can_ see don't look very butterfly-like. I don't think."

"You thought right. Do I _sound_ like a butterfly?"

"A bit."

"A bit?" The voice was astonished, the boy matter-of-fact.

"Well, you might. I've never talked to a butterfly before. Or I have, but it didn't talk back, quite as well. _You_ talk all right, I mean, for a butterfly."

The small voice gave a good pause. "On reflection," it said, with a certain interest in reflections, like a child picking up trinkets -- which it might have been. "I suppose I could be a butterfly, dreaming I was something else. Or I could be something else, dreaming I was a butterfly. Or I could just always be dreaming. That's known as 'skepticism.'"

"Can you be something else dreaming you're a butterfly dreaming you're something else?"

"... I don't think so ..."

"You're not sure?"

"I don't _think_ so. But it's called skepticism."

"What are you, then?"

The eyes peered up at the sunlight around the boy. "If I'm not wrong," the voice said. "I'm a person. Except, people are often wrong. So maybe it's the opposite. I wish it wasn't. I don't see the point, if people can't ever be right at anything. Perhaps the flaw is in the premises ... "

The boy considered poking said person, to be sure, but wasn't sure where to poke. Not the eyes, certainly. "What are you doing down there?"

"I fell."

Puzzled and innocent, the boy looked up. "From where?"

"I fell through the sky."

He reached up, as if to touch it. "You fell from the sky?"

"No, I fell through it."

"What's the difference?"

"Semantic." There was pride in the little voice to use such a large word, but the only one to hear it was intent on something else.

"Have you ever noticed," he asked, rapt, "that the sky is very dark when you look straight up at it, but when you start to look down, it gets lighter and lighter, and at the end it's almost white?"

What might have been a person whispered, "Yes."

The boy looked down again. "Did it hurt, when you fell?"

"A little."

"I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault. "The sky at all sides, white on every horizon ... surrounded by space, held in by infinity ... I felt trapped."

"That's probably because you're still lying there! Here." He held out a hand, the voice began to protest, a weak, "I don't _think_ ..." but small fingers caught small fingers out of leaves and were tugged both up into the sunlight.

What sat up wasn't a butterfly, or very like a butterfly, but very like another boy and more curious than a caterpillar. The first boy kept their hands together clasped together. "There!" he declared, with a wide, sun-filled smile. "That's better, isn't it?"

The not-a-butterfly frowned and tried not to blush. "What's your name?" he asked.

"I don't know, what's yours?"

"Guildenstern."

"I'm Rosencrantz, then," the boy said. "Or I was, last I heard. Would you like to be my friend?"

Bemused, the boy named Guildenstern asked, "Do you often make friends with people who fall out of the sky?"

"Well, only the ones I like, I expect. And I've only _met_ the one."

Guildenstern smiled, bewildered, as one not used to and startled into it -- and Rosencrantz at once liked the look of it, so he laughed and hugged his new friend, tumbling them back into the leaves. Before anything, it was simple, they were happy. The summer sky was blue, like smoke.


End file.
